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Senior Member

I want to apologize for my tardy moves, fellas. The past few months have made it difficult for me to get any chess time in.

In September, my father had a heart attack, something that necessitated surgery and a lengthy recovery. That event pretty much obliterated chess in September and October.

My father finally came home on Oct 22...one week later (on his birthday, no less), Hurricane Sandy hit my area like a monster. We have been without power until yesterday - 11 days in all (i.e., just got it back yesterday). So that killed my chess time for the past two weeks.

I shudder to think what else is coming down the pike in 2012.

Fortunately, Chess.com put my account on vacation automatically when I disappeared - I didn't even realize this was a perk of being a paid member! Fortunately, this saved me from losing the tourney on time. Unfortunately, though, this just added more delay for the rest of you. Sorry about that.

Hopefully there will not be any more interruptions - I pray to God, because I don't think I could take much more this year.

Anyway, just thought everyone deserved an explanation as to why it seems I am dragging my games out.

Member

Yeah, I hope things turn around for you quickly Scott. Hard to believe NYC could be without power for that long. Not from a disgruntled consumer point of view, but from a stunned it could happen to a modern city POV. I've missed the chess article or links you often pass along.

Just before we start looking forward to a new year, I'm aiming to get my chess.com rating from in the 1300's back up to 1,600. Just my own little personal goal before this year is out.

Interestingly, Vecht closed his account sometime during the tourney, so he isn't shown. However, if he was still around, he would have placed #2 (that is, unless his account was closed due to cheating....:hmmm.

Congrats to Lurker (as usual ). You're still King around here. :salute:

All things considered, I should have withdrawn from this tourney. While I was excited to launch our first ever Chess960 event, truth is I really was not in the mood for playing chess because of the events of the last few months of 2012 (my father's surgery / Hurricane Irene & the 14-day blackout). The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I hate it when people sign up for a tourney and then resign all their games once it begins. So I stuck with it...which is why it took so long to conclude: I just couldn't muster a better response than one move every 7-10 days as playing chess felt more like a chore to me during this period. :toilet:

But I think I might finally be slowly coming out of this anti-chess phase.

So what did everyone think about the first 960 tourney? Did you like it? Hate it? Want to do it again?